So I picked up a couple hundred pounds of brisket and Boston butts yesterday...

[pjtexas1]

you can fit it all in there. move the 2 briskets up and load the bottom rack and warmer with butts. you are just trying to convince "someone" that you need a bigger shirley. :heh: all that being said i have no issue with this and i hope the strategy works. :thumb:

 

[sudsandswine]

you can fit it all in there. move the 2 briskets up and load the bottom rack and warmer with butts. you are just trying to convince "someone" that you need a bigger shirley. :heh: all that being said i have no issue with this and i hope the strategy works. :thumb:

Ah yes, I always forget about the warmer. I currently have splits in there. :icon_shy and shhh don't tell my plan.

 

[sudsandswine]

About 4.5 hours in, cookers been floating between 240* and 260* on the middle shelf. That's a shade cooler than I normally run it but that seems to be what the fire feels like doing today so I'm not gonna fight it. Been using some nice hickory that BBQ Freak hooked me up with and have tossed a few splits of cherry in along the way. It's almost 60* and sunny today, so I'll take it.

Red thermometer is the top grate, blue is the middle.

 

[sudsandswine]

She is running good today....nice and clean just how I like it.

edit...I dunno what it is about this site and always posting pictures the wrong orientation, but good lord it's annoying. :redface:

 

[gtr]

Even though it's a lot of work, something about cooking chitloads of meat is fun. I've had great success many times with the cook ahead/vac seal/reheat bag in hot water method. I have a couple huge stockpots I use, but maybe I should use the next event as an excuse to get myself one of those sous vide thingees.

Hope all the rest goes well - looking good so far!

 

[sudsandswine]

Well I 'spose I should eat somethin.

 

[Smoking Piney]

You're a much braver man than I, Suds.......:-D

This is a daunting cook. Even if I had the cooker capacity for this load of meat, I doubt I'd try it. Keeping track of that quantity of meat would short circuit me. :-D

 

[sudsandswine]

I'm just trying to not overthink it....meat and heat, that's all it is. We will see what happens though.

I find this to be much more straight forward than a competition cook where you have 4 different meats that all have to be done by a certain time.

 

[Smoking Piney]

Have fun, Suds. :-D

 

[sudsandswine]

6 of the 10 briskets probed about perfect....into the cooler, waiting for the last 4, then I'll blast chill in an ice bath in vacuum bags.

We started prepping the pork a couple of hours ago, I did the trimming and my brother did the injection. With the two of us tag teaming it, it still took a couple hours. But it's nice that's all out of the way and I just have to run and place in the smoker in the morning.

The top and middle racks really evened out, at most they've been within 8 or 9 degrees of another. I think the way the air moves through the cooler when it's full of meat because with just a couple hunks of meat in there the two shelves never really ran that close.

 

[pjtexas1]

I'd like to cook a big batch of briskets once and have them all finish with 2 hours of each other. I always seem to have 1 or 2 stubborn ones.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[bryonlr]

Epic cook Suds, fine thing your doing for your brothers big day.

 

[electron_si]

Thanks for posting pics.

I love your Shirley btw. I’m a big fan of the GC wheel setup

 

[sudsandswine]

Thanks! Just finished slicing, bagging, and chilling all the briskets. I was too busy to take many pics but I did get a few....I cut every single slice by hand. All 10 briskets turned out amazing, they may even be my best ever. 8 were wrapped and finished in foil, but the 2 largest that needed the most time didn't end up getting wrapped and I think those two were my favorite. Crazy juicy insides with a slightly crusty outer shell.

The Shirley was definitely in it's element today and I think it cooked its best crammed full of meat. I'll weigh all the bags tomorrow and check my yield but I had very little waste during trimming. Pretty happy (and tired) right now :thumb:

Gonna get about 4 hours of sleep and do it all over again tomorrow.

 

[sudsandswine]

Sneak preview

 

[Stone A]

Beauty! Best wishes to your brother and his wife-to-be!

 

[sudsandswine]

Ugh...did I even sleep?? Guess I better fire up the espresso machine after I get this cooker started.

Ready for round #2

 

[electron_si]

Haha I checked this thread last night and you are back at it. Good luck today.

I’m actually in KC today but I’m headed to Iowa. Maybe we can get a KC brethren group together to do some cooking.

 

[Jason TQ]

Ugh...did I even sleep?? Guess I better fire up the espresso machine after I get this cooler started.

No sleep for stick burners :becky:. Looks great. That is a decent amount of prep for pork. Brisket trimming can help, but for butts I open the package season and toss on. You can get a ton of extra flavor adding in de-fatted juice and some extra rub mixed at the end when pulling.

I do like injecting though, but keep that for small batches and use a pump injector if I do more than 2 butts. This is a special occasion so I like the attention to detail :clap2:. Love cooks like these.

 

[LloydQ]

That brisket looks to die for!